FerFAL sees crime and personal finances as the main issues to handle for the modern survivalists. This is why he advocates living in the city: you have access to the police, services, and jobs. The book is very heavy on streetsmarts and being pragmatic.

One advantage that FerFAL has visavi the American survivalists is that he has lived through SHTF. The book gives us a lot of info on how it all went down in Argentina, and how the country basically descended into thirdworldness after the economic meltdown in 2001. It’s the kind of Shit-Hit-The-Fan where the government works against you but still wants your money. I have no way of verifying if FerFAL’s doom & gloom sentiment toward his country’s situation is actually accurate, but I still find his perspective very useful. It’s not likely that we’re facing a sudden catapult into Mad Max territory. A gradual decline into quite-shitty is far more likely, and in any case we want to live a good life, not just sit around in a dank bunker and eat petrified crackers and talk to rats. This brand of ferfalian survivalism is gaining popularity, with Jack Spirko of The Survival Podcast being the other prominent example that I know of.

The book includes a lot of the usual content, like how to stockpile food, fight hand-to-hand, and put together a Bug Out Bag, but it also has some novel stuff, like evasive driving, networking with useful people, making money, bartering for goods on the black market, and legal advice for various situations. There’s lots of typos and odd grammar in the book as well as some weird stuff like how to eat cats, but I find that it actually adds to the atmosphere. This is a good buy if you’re heavy into preparedness and want a nice collection of skills and best practices from someone who has lived through some very rough times.